Conviction overturned in drug-fueled shooting case

BALLSTON SPA -- A man who has spent more than two years in prison for shooting another man in the leg during a drug-fueled night in Saratoga Springs may soon be released after his conviction was overturned.

Frederick W. Clark Jr., who was 46 when he was convicted by a jury in December 2010, was sentenced to seven years in prison for shooting

Clark admitted to shooting Vargas in the thigh with a 30-30 hunting rifle after he and Vargas got into an argument.

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Clark said it was self-defense. The victim told a different story.

Vargas, a four-time felon who was on parole at the time, said he brought cocaine to Clark's house and had made arrangements to stay on Clark's couch.

He testified that Clark became agitated after several hours of everyone in the house using drugs.

"The drugs ran out and he said it was time to go," Vargas testified in December 2010, still in a wheelchair from the shooting a year before.

Clark, on the other hand, said Vargas arrived unannounced and that while they used drugs together, there was no arrangement for Vargas to stay, only to do some laundry at Clark's house.

Clark's attorney, John McMahan, said Clark asked everyone to leave at about 5 a.m. when Vargas became violent, threatening Clark, who was 75 percent disabled.

The argument moved to the bedroom, where Clark shot Vargas in the leg. He then drove him to Saratoga Hospital, where Vargas told police he had been shot by a black man in Schenectady.

In its decision to overturn the case, the Third Judicial Department of the Supreme Court Appellate Division argued procedures were violated during the jury's deliberation that could have prejudiced their decision.

Both procedures pertain to interactions between Judge Jerry Scarano and the jury.

During their deliberation, in one instance, the jury requested the court read back the testimony Vargas gave regarding the altercation.

The judge ordered the stenographer to read back Vargas' testimony, but despite the strenuous objections of Clark's defense attorney, did not order that the cross-examination testimony be read back. So the jury heard the prosecution's side of the testimony twice, but only heard the defense's side once.

"If you only read back the DA's half, you are emphasizing the prosecution's side (of the case) while eradicating the defense's portion," said Terrence L. Kindlon, who argued Clark's appeal. "It creates an imbalance."

That was the feeling of the appeals court as well.

"Vargas, by his own admission, had multiple criminal convictions and was out on parole at the time of the underlying incident -- all of which prompted him to concoct a story designed to explain the shooting while deflecting attention away from the drugs-for-laundry deal he had struck with the defendant," the case reads.

Only providing the prosecution's side of Vargas' testimony, the judges ruled, "seriously prejudiced the defendant and deprived him of a fair trial."

That wasn't the only error the judges found, though. They also ruled that the jury hadn't received an adequate response from the court when requesting a clarification of the legal aspects of self-defense.

"County Court failed 'to provide a meaningful response to the jury' and, in so doing, failed to fulfill its 'core responsibility' in this regard," the court ruled, which in itself, the judges wrote, would be cause for a new trial.

"It's kind of technical, not that it matters much to my client, who is in a very non-technical prison," Kindlon said. So far, Clark has not served even half of his sentence.

The appeals court sent the case back to Saratoga County for a new trial. Kindlon said he will be petitioning to have Clark released from prison in the interim.